


you don’t even have to say you’re sorry (goodbye, i’m going home)

by dnbroughs



Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, No Beach Divorce, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23547382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dnbroughs/pseuds/dnbroughs
Summary: from the tumblr prompt: “I’m Haunted”He was still there. Until he wasn’t.Until he was
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	you don’t even have to say you’re sorry (goodbye, i’m going home)

For all of his naive optimism, Charles knew that something, somewhere, some time, had to give. In all honesty, he didn’t expect it to take this long, but it didn’t stop the dull ache piercing his chest when he woke up to a cold space in his bed and a cold space in his mind. Erik had gone, seemingly once and for all, and there was nothing Charles could’ve done to make him stay.

It was if Erik had never been in the mansion in the first place. The few clothes he had had been neatly extracted from the wardrobe, so as to not disturb the stuffy, jumbled heap of cardigans and button downs they used to comfortably neighbour. His shoes were gone from the rack by the front door, and the ten-a-penny paperbacks he used to read just to complain about had either been thrown out or taken with him, but either way, they no longer cluttered the library’s coffee table. Even the take out order he had scribbled down on the back of a receipt had been extricated from a pile of bills and clutter on the kitchen counter and disposed of.

To all extents and purposes, Erik Lehnsherr had never existed within the ornate bubble of Westchester, and to all extents and purposes, Charles got on with it. If the sight of his toothbrush sitting on its lonesome in his bathroom cabinet, one where there used to be two, made him sob like a child into his pillow, curled up, cold and small in his too big bed- well, Charles would never admit to it.

Nobody spoke about it. Hank never said a word, despite his constant tentative relief, and Sean, bless him, managed to reel in his habitually massive gob whenever Charles was around. Erik’s absence seemed to make Raven restless, and Alex seemed to wander around, untethered and lost, and he seemed to emanate a constant sense of being cut off, as if he was constantly walking into rooms and then walking out, like he had completely forgotten the reason he entered in the first place. 

But it was still far too normal, far too cosy, and far too familiar. Charles wanted to scream, wanted to cry, wanted to hate himself for believing that it could’ve gone any differently. Erik had come with him to bide his time, to get closer to Shaw, to edge ever closer to the sweet victory he had spent the past two decades dreaming of. In the wake of Shaw’s death, when the dust had finally settled, Charles had lost his legs, and he’d be damned if he lost Erik too. He never found it in him to care if it was guilt that brought Erik back to Westchester, it didn’t matter in the slightest because Erik was there. So what if his eyes seemed to be glued to the metal of his chair? So what if he flinched every time Charles came close? So what if he put more distance between them now than he did in the beginning? He was still there. Until he wasn’t.

Until he was.

One minute Charles was alone at his study, the next there was a knock on his door and then Erik was on his knees by Charles’s side, helmet in his hands and something like sorrow in his eyes. There was a punch if the sting in Charles’s knuckles are anything to go by, and there was a bruising kiss and before Charles knew it, against his better judgement, Erik was climbing over him in his- their- bed and their clothes were on the floor and nothing worked like it used to but they didn’t care, both of them a flurry of hands and lips and caresses and thoughts, and as they both climaxed together, rain pelted against the windows and tears flooded Charles’s eyes.

It wasn’t until the hazy limbo between dusk and dawn that Charles finally asked Erik why he left, one hand tracing lazy patterns on Erik’s chest and the other balled into a fist by his side.

Erik’s eyes stayed trained on the ceiling, but his fingers never faltered in Charles’s hair

“It was- I just-” he sighed, shifting slightly on the mattress. “Good things don’t happen to people like me, Charles. Killing Shaw wasn’t going to change that, I knew killing Shaw wasn’t going to change that. It was only a matter of time before the hand I was dealt caught up with me, and I don’t think I could forgive myself if came for you and your children too. I wasn’t going to sit around and wait for me to ruin your life.” His fingers brushed the ugly knot of scar tissue at the base of Charles’s spine, a phantom whisper at the bottom of his back. “Not again.”

For all his soft words and soft touches, Charles fumed, a burning rage settling over all his limbs in a searing flash, and he supposed he projected it if Erik’s wince was anything to go by, and he willed up thoughts of mint and ice to soothe it away. “I think I can decide what’s good for me and what’s not, Erik.”

“You don’t understand, Charles. I-” Erik took a moment to consider his words, and Charles could feel him flipping them over in his head, the same way he would flip his coin over in the palm of his hand, calculated, controlled, and with an uneasy underlying intent. “I’m haunted.”

Charles scoffed.

“I’m telling you. I’m haunted. By Shaw, by my parents, by the lives I’ve taken, the lives I’ve destroyed.” Another brush against his back. “I’m haunted, and one day, it’s going to drive me mad. The ghosts are going to drive me mad, and I’ll raise hell to get rid of them, and I don’t want you to be here when that happens.”

Charles sighed, the last remnants of anger dissipating into the space between them, and he propped himself up on Erik’s chest, one hand over his heart just to feel it beating.

“When I was young,” he began, taking a shaky breath through his nose, “Raven thought this house must be haunted. She was certain there was a monster under her bed, and that the things that went bump in the night were out to get her. I told her she was silly, that there was nothing in this house that was sinister enough to cause her harm, boogeyman or apparitions alike. I wasn’t until I returned here that I realised how right she was.”

Visions of his mother, stooped drunk in Erik’s usual armchair, Kurt striking him in the middle of the dining room, Cain pushing him down the stairs outside of Sean’s room. He sent them to Erik, and the hand at the small of his back gripped protectively at the swell of his hip.

“There are ghosts everywhere around us, Erik. Mine and yours both. We just have to learn to live with them.”

For a second, Charles thought Erik might flee again, and from the swirl of emotions whirlpooling around his head, Erik thought he would too. He surprised them both by pulling Charles closer to him, finally meeting his eyes.

“Will you teach me how?”

The words were spoken softly, just for them, and Charles couldn’t help the welling of tears nor the smile on his face.

“Oh my darling,” Charles whispered, cupping Erik’s face, exalting in the way Erik leaned into his hand. “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr @ hanbruogh or on twitter @cherikisms !


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